The philosophies of men mingled with the philosophies of women.

Promptly and Publicly Disavowed, Or Not

Prior to June 9, 1978, black members of the LDS Church were denied access to LDS temple ordinances and black men were denied the right to be ordained to the LDS priesthood. On that date, the Church publicly announced a policy change reversing those practices. In 2014, almost forty years later, the Church published “Race and the Priesthood” at the LDS.org site, finally giving a clear and public disavowal of all the racist folklore that circulated (and continues to circulate) as doctrine among LDS members and leadership attempting to explain the priesthood and temple ban. From the current version of that essay:

Over time, Church leaders and members advanced many theories to explain the priesthood and temple restrictions. None of these explanations is accepted today as the official doctrine of the Church.

On June 1, 2018, Pres. Dallin Oaks of the First Presidency said the following as part of his remarks at the “Be One” LDS celebration of the 1978 policy change (emphasis added; full transcript at the Church News):

Institutionally, the Church reacted swiftly to the revelation on the priesthood. Ordinations and temple recommends came immediately. The reasons that had been given to try to explain the prior restrictions on members of African ancestry — even those previously voiced by revered Church leaders — were promptly and publicly disavowed.

Promptly and publicly disavowed? This seems to be another example of the almost standard practice of LDS leaders to be rather free with the facts when discussing events in LDS history. It’s possible that Pres. Oaks had statements by Elder Bruce R. McConkie in mind. On August 18, 1978, Elder McConkie gave a speech at BYU (at the CES Religious Educators Symposium) titled “All Are Alike unto God.” Elder McConkie was present with other apostles at the Salt Lake Temple on June 1, 1978, when Pres. Kimball announced his decision to change the policy and the assembled apostles (individually and collectively) had a very moving spiritual experience. In his BYU talk, Elder McConkie said:

Forget everything that I have said, or what President Brigham Young or President George Q. Cannon or whomsoever has said in days past that is contrary to the present revelation. We spoke with a limited understanding and without the light and knowledge that now has come into the world.

We get our truth and our light line upon line and precept upon precept. We have now had added a new flood of intelligence and light on this particular subject, and it erases all the darkness and all the views and all the thoughts of the past. They don’t matter any more.

It doesn’t make a particle of difference what anybody ever said about the Negro matter before the first day of June of this year, 1978. It is a new day and a new arrangement, and the Lord has now given the revelation that sheds light out into the world on this subject. As to any slivers of light or any particles of darkness of the past, we forget about them. We now do what meridian Israel did when the Lord said the gospel should go to the Gentiles. We forget all the statements that limited the gospel to the house of Israel, and we start going to the Gentiles.

But this clearly was not intended or understood at the time as a clear, public disavowal of what had previously been taught by LDS leaders on the subject. In 1998, as the twentieth anniversary of the policy change approached, there was discussion among some of the mid-level LDS leadership about explicitly how to go about disavowing the doctrine/speculation/folklore which circulated and continued to circulate in the Church to explain or defend or justify the pre-1978 Ban. The story broke in the press (“Mormons May Disavow Old View on Blacks,” Los Angeles Times, May 18, 1998); it was a really big deal and went viral in the media. The next day, Pres. Hinckley publicly repudiated the entire project. As related in a Salt Lake Tribune article the next day (“LDS Leaders Haven’t Discussed Racial Disavowal,” Salt Lake Tribune, May 19, 1998), “the LDS Church’s governing First Presidency, led by President Gordon B. Hinckley, quashed the suggestion [that LDS leaders were discussing a disavowal] later Monday, saying ‘the matter … has not been discussed by the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve.'”

You see what the problem is. If there had been a prior disavowal, the 1998 response to the story would have been, “No need, we already made a clear public disavowal of those now-discredited explanations,” and cited the earlier disavowal. There would have been no need for concerned Mormons or leaders even to discuss a disavowal or how to go about making it if such a disavowal had already been made. It hadn’t. [For a fuller discussion of this entire 1998 episode, see Armand Mauss, “Casting Off the ‘Curse of Cain,'” in Black and Mormon, Newell G. Bringhurst and Darron T. Smith, eds., U. of Illinois Press, 2004).

An even clearer indication that no such clear and public disavowal was made until the Race and Priesthood essay in 2014 was the Bott Affair. In February 2012, Randy Bott, a BYU religion teacher, was interviewed by a Washington Post reporter and quoted in that paper as providing standard but questionable Mormon justifications for the Ban. Again, a media frenzy ensued. The Church immediately released a statement at the Mormon Newsroom repudiating anything Bott said, and basically repudiating anything that anyone ever said about the Ban (“Some have attempted to explain the reason for this restriction but these attempts should be viewed as speculation and opinion, not doctrine.”). But this statement was never highlighted at LDS.org or in General Conference. It was not directed to the membership of the Church, most of whom were never aware of the statement. Only with the Race and the Priesthood essay, itself very quietly inserted into the LDS.org site, was a statement by the Church made that could be regarded as a clear and public disavowal directed to the members of the Church. In 2014, 36 years after the 1978 policy change.

17 thoughts on “Promptly and Publicly Disavowed, Or Not”

It seems to me that Oaks is still following the “w don’t know” excuse. Here’s what Matt Harris said on that.

[The 1969 First Presidency statement] was the first time in any document that I have seen where the church moves to a “we don’t know” position, which becomes sort of a quasi-official line for the next two or three decades after 1970, which is really interesting because before that, when you are Joseph Fielding Smith writing the books you write, and Mormon Doctrine, to say “we don’t know” when you read those books, they know.

Really that line, it’s a throwaway line in my view. It is based on a response to the Civil Rights Movement when people ask: “Why can’t your church give black people priesthood rights?”

…

So, [McKay] recognizes that the public relations dictate just keep the expressions simple and praiseworthy. That’s the context in which they create the “we don’t know” statement. They are trying to remove some of these justifications that got them into hot water. They still believe it of course, but yet that’s now the new line that we don’t know.

I think Elder McConkie’s statement in 1978 is clearly a prompt and public disavowal. Forget everything — we spoke with limited understanding — it doesn’t make a particle of difference what anybody ever said before — this sounds like a disavowal, and it was both prompt and public.

Rick B., great commentary. I think originally they said “we don’t know” while privately thinking they certainly did know but couldn’t say it anymore. Now I think they say “we don’t know” and they honestly don’t know. They’ve tried so many doctrinal dead ends on this issue that they have given up and want us all to move along. They seem entirely unaware of the clear analogy most members see between how the leadership handled “blacks and the priesthood” and how they are now trying to handle “gays and membership.”

I don’t think any formal disavowal will gain widespread traction unless it comes with an apology and an admission that the racial restrictions were wrong. So far, all official statements have stopped short of that. I’m guessing the “no apologies” approach is the hill Oaks is willing to die on.

Sure would have been nice to know about the “public” disavowal when I was on my mission back in 1980 but it would have been better to know the whole story – the policy actually was a result of racist attitudes, primarily from Brigham Young, not the will of the Lord.

In the mid 80’s, I was in a car pool with three black men. All were members of the same Baptist church. One driver usually had a gospel station playing on the radio when he drove. One day a pastor advertised over the radio a pamphlet or book on the theme ‘all you need to know about Mormons’. After the commercial, I turned to the other three and told them if they had any questions about Mormons, they didn’t need that book, they could just ask me (they already knew I was Mormon). The next day when I get picked up the car is silent – which was unusual. I immediately knew they had been discussing me and Mormons. The silence didn’t last too long when one of the guys asked “Dave, why did your church not ordain blacks?” I did tell them I didn’t know, but that we believed the Lord directed it. I’m embarrassed now about involving the Lord with that explanation. It was what I thought was true at the time and frankly what most Mormons still believe. But it’s just not true when one reviews the history. The pastor’s book probably did have a more accurate explanation on that particular topic.

I believe the worst manifestation of taking the Lord’s name in vain is when a person in power pretends to be acting in the name of the Lord. Depending on what leaders know about church history today, it would seem any who continue to put forth the explanation that the Lord sanctioned the priesthood ban is crossing the line into taking the Lord’s name in vain and they are most likely guilty of bearing false witness as well.

If the “The whiter your skin, the better you were in the preexistence” notion is true, then all of Scandinavia should be members of the Church by now. And, look at how Ghana has 78,000 members in 40 years of growth, despite in the horrific “Freeze” there.

A side note to this, is that uncertainty about racist policies of the Church were part of why the “Freeze” came about.

McConkie’s talk was no disavow. First, it didn’t use the word or anything like it. Second, he was only referring to the teachings that blacks would not get the priesthood until the seed of Abel got it first, which is to say, the millennium. There was no discussion if we don’t know, our reasons were wrong, etc.

Rather, E. McConkie reiterated the preexistence valiency, as well as the children of Cain doctrines.

The first time the church disavowed it could be the Mormon news room quote or the 2013 essay. The essay has yet to be quoted by any authoritative source or even printed in the Ensign. Most importantly,, the valiency and curse of Cain have yet to be disavowed in general conference.

Hee. I was part of the “media frenzy” around Randy Bott, in mainstream media no less. I think around 80,000 people read my essay, which basically made the points which this article did (it hasn’t been disavowed) but with less historical context. Which I found interesting, thank you!

I … really felt that this was something that more people needed to hold church leaders’ feet to the fire on. I wanted to help drown out the ad spending, the PR campaigns, the loud public proclamations of how much we love black people … just please don’t ask us how we talk about them amongst ourselves.

Did it help? Well, Mitt Romney didn’t get elected … and I didn’t need to ask my partner for quite as much help paying rent that month. Win-win, I guess.

This issue is pretty close to my heart, actually; it’s what started me on my path out of the church.

In my close-knit group of friends who played an online game together, we had a black guy and a man who showed interest in the church, but at a distance. One day the latter asked me why black men hadn’t been allowed to have the priesthood, and I realized I didn’t know. So I looked it up, and the first answers I found were all “curse of Cain” things.

I did more digging though … probably when I realized my black friend didn’t like the answer. Pretty soon I came across FAIR, where black apologists were giving the obvious explanation: Past church leaders were racist. Don’t defend them, just say they were racist and move on. (Naturally, church leadership refuses to do so … )

Anyway, that was fresh in my mind when I realized all my gay and lesbian friends (in another online game group) had been really hurt by Prop 8, and were really hurt by what the church continued to do. So once again, I studied it out and prayed sincerely to know why we were doing this to them … and this time, my heart was prepared for the answer.

I actually just got back from doing some really Mormon-ish summer vacation stuff. I have to admit it warmed my generally non-believing heart a bit and came away less critical of the church. But when I then see items like this where the top church leaders are really bending the truth when a lay member can show clearly that this is happening, it saddens me and it feels like I have no other choice than to distance myself more from those that want to use half-truths to further their cause. I just can’t respect people acting like this.